Syntel CQA Forum
CQA Doc No 16
Cause and Effect Diagram
The cause and effect diagram is also called the
fishbone chart because of its appearance and the
Ishakowa chart after the man who popularized its use
in Japan. Its most frequent use is to list the cause of
particular problems. The lines coming off the core
horizontal line are the main causes and the lines
coming off those are sub causes.
Run Chart
The run chart shows the history and pattern of
variation. It is helpful to indicate on the chart whether
up is good or down is good. This tool is used at the
beginning of the change process to see what the
problems are. It is used at the end (check) part of the
change process to see whether the change has
resulted in a permanent improvement.
Scatter Diagram
The scatter diagram shows the pattern of relationship
between two variables that are thought to be related.
For example is there a relationship between out side
temperature and cases of the common cold? As
temperatures drop, do colds increase. The closer the
points hug a diagonal line the more closely there is a
one to one relationship.
Flowchart
The flowchart lists the order of activities. The circle
symbol indicates the beginning or end of the process.
The box indicates action items and the diamond
indicates decision points. A beneficial technique is to
map the ideal process and the actual process and
identify the differences as targets for improvements.
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The Seven Quality Control Tools (7QC)
Pareto Chart
The Pareto shows the distribution of items and
arranges them from the most frequent to the least
frequent with the final bar being misc. The tool is
named after Wilfredo Pareto, the Italian economist who
determined that wealth is not evenly distributed. Some
of the people have most of the money. This tool is a
graphical picture of the most frequent causes of a
particular problem. It shows where to put your initial
effort to get the most gain.
Histogram
The histogram is a bar chart showing a distribution of
variables. An example would be to line up by height a
group of people in a course. Normally one would be
the tallest and one would be the shortest and there
would be a cluster of people around an average
height. Hence the phrase "normal distribution". This
tool helps identify the cause of problems in process by
the shape of the distribution as well as the width of the
distribution.
Control Chart
The control chart is a line chart with control limits. It is
based on the work of Shewhart and Deming. By
mathematically constructing control limits at 3
standard deviations above and below the average, one
can determine what variation is due to normal ongoing
causes (common causes) and what variation is
produced by unique events (special causes). By
eliminating the special causes first and then reducing
common causes, quality can be improved.
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